My take on accountability is a strict conformity to discipline. I was trying to use the term for lack of a better word. The purpose is the continual attatchment of burden to be held upon the individual by utilizing strict enforcement.

In this case it is set to a specific kind of people who need constant oversight with no room for leiniancy. Any of them who believe they can handle it on their own are probably among the most dangerous. For offenders this would have already been proven true.

The parameters are set and there would be zero tolarance for not living up to the requirements set before them. Pass or fail on each aspect to where every failure to comply results in a corresponding punishment and constriction to their daily living.

For someone who DOES have a lot of self control and humility it would barely phase their daily living because they would already be living up to that standard. The requirements are attainable and structured to the betterment of the individual and safety of the public.

It's very doable, different than a military life but kind of built around the same ideals where there is a clear standard of conformity.

The burden should not be on "us" the victimized. This is prevention.

Looks like you must have been responding to my post at the same time I was deleting it. lol I don't know enough about it to really say, but what you are describing sounds to me like what is already being done with sex offenders..at least the ones who are placed into the community under supervision, but like I said, I'm not knowledgeable about that so I could be wrong.

At any rate, I'm losing interest in this subject now. I'm having enough trouble figuring out my own problems so I think I'll have to leave fixing the world to someone else for now.

Ineffable, thanks for pointing out such an obvious point as trust that I was too arrogant to realize. Forgive me.

And Andy, please forgive me if I have insulted you. My winks were not meant to mock you, and my questions about your data/sources are sincere. I was very clumsy at trying to be playful with a really tough topic. If I seemed most critical of you and your work, again I apologize if it seemed I was attacking you personally. Please do not stop posting. I really do feel this is an awesome thread, and you, as well as everyone else posting here are HELPING me.

Like I said, I too work with sex offenders. However, as a survivor dealing with my own anger towards my mother, who abused me, I am tired of hating and being angry. Your comments and assertions are challenging me to do something more than just be angry. I was too busy quoting all these powerful posts and in my own head to get my own point across clearly. I'm at a point where I need to do something different, something productive. Hating served a purpose for me for a time, but I have no use for that now.

And what the heck, no one challenged my own data! The only time I have heard it mentioned about how half of all offenders lie about being victims was at the conference last year. I haven't found any further information about it, though I have looked. The person who brought it up worked for the FBI, however. I, too need to do more research to get these specifics, and I should have pointed that out when I suggested you do more research, too, Andy. I think we all do. From law enforcement, to judges, to therapists as well as offenders, none of us can get our stories straight.

Again, please forgive me if I offended anyone. I think we all agree on more things here than we realize, we just have very different ways and reasons for forming our opinions, and writing them down.

What is being done now with the actual offenders is that they are allowed back into the communities, given responsibilities which they can't carry on their own accord, and trusted that they have been in some way reformed through the limited treatment they recieved while incarcerated.

How many times do you hear that one of them failed to register as a sex offender? Why are things like that left up to them when it should be attatched at sentencing and carried by them through the rest of their life. Some entity should automatically register them, tell them exactly where they are going to live, etc. Their should be no reason why one of them is lost by whatever governing system or that probation should ever run out. Their is no redeeming quality to say that they have been "good enough" to be self reliant.

The idea of supervision when they are registered is them having the responsibility to check in with someone and take more sex offender classes, just a list of things for them to check off. Their is no real enforcement or strategy like I've been trying to explain. I just get so tired of excuses for them.... they have no where to go, they're mentally ill, they were hurt as kids, they didn't know any better, they didn't mean to cause harm, etc. anything to try and plea for their actions. Later on it's... they've served their time, they have rights too, they deserve a second chance, everybody makes mistakes, etc.

In all of this the most dangerous thing is having them back in the communities where they are surrounded by their prey even with the public announcements. You don't put an alcoholic in a bar and trust them not to drink anything. With sex offenders it can be worse because their are plenty of them who can just get off by seeing a kid. I hate the thought that any kid is even looked at with that lust. They shouldn't see a kid for the rest of their life..... they failed to be safe and that is their consequence. Extreme??? Hell yes!

My view of prevention for offenders is not to give them ANY opportunity to hurt another kid. It's not hate but logic... if they don't want to hurt another child, this would make sure they accomplished that goal especially for the minority of them who are sincere.

_________________________
Semper Fi

The statistics? 1 in 4, 1 in 6? ...then there's me the imaginary number

Love, safety, and security are necessities to human beings and which of those three do "we" have issues with because of what was done to us? It's all three for me. Because we were hurt do we inflict it on another generation? "We" much rather hurt ourselves than hurt a child. "They" would rather hurt a child and feel guilty, gratified, or whatever afterwords and preserve themself.

_________________________
Semper Fi

The statistics? 1 in 4, 1 in 6? ...then there's me the imaginary number

****When I finished this post I found new posts had been made and since i didn't use the quote feature, I'll just say here that this was in response to Chester's last post.*********************************************************************One thing that seems pretty certain about, not just offenders, but about all human beings is that we have more trouble thinking clearly about things that upset us.

Yesterday I read a post on another board by an abused teen that first made me cry and then made me want to come back to this thread and delete or reverse my position on everything I said about the possible value of working with offenders.

Of course all the stories I read are extremely upsetting/triggering, but some just make everything I've gone through look like a walk in the park and hit all the right buttons to make me so furious I can hardly see straight.

But as I started to think these dark rage-filled thoughts it occurred to me that I was beginning to enter the same nihilistic world-view that is what I tend to think offenders live in.

Since I can't wrap my mind around the notion of offenders actually managing somehow to rationalize their way into convincing themselves that what they do is somehow acceptable, I'm more prone to see those people as having simply discarded the needto rationalize or convince themselves that it's acceptable.

I mean, if their sexual wiring or their need for power and control supersede their basic human compassion, all that's left to make them act differently is a sense that ideas like justice, fairness or morality are valid and if that gets tossed out the window---either by a conscious process of sh*tty philosophy or just by reaching that level of cynical apathy, there is nothing left at all to bother them about it.

You could preach to them forever about how wrong what they are doing is and they just hear "blah blah blah blah". You can tell them about the psychological/emotional damage they cause and they just hear "blah blah blah blah" same as I would if I was listening to one of them spout some nihilistic offender-mind BS.

Anyway, to wrap up my point, it seems like the easiest thing to do to loose my own values in my rage over someone else's lack of them. I guess this only differs from the old "don't stoop to their level" argument only in that, in addition to that, I am saying that if we don't recognize the role our anger plays in our ability to think, we may not have a choice!

What is being done now with the actual offenders is that they are allowed back into the communities, given responsibilities which they can't carry on their own accord, and trusted that they have been in some way reformed through the limited treatment they recieved while incarcerated.

How many times do you hear that one of them failed to register as a sex offender? Why are things like that left up to them when it should be attatched at sentencing and carried by them through the rest of their life. Some entity should automatically register them, tell them exactly where they are going to live, etc. Their should be no reason why one of them is lost by whatever governing system or that probation should ever run out. Their is no redeeming quality to say that they have been "good enough" to be self reliant.

The idea of supervision when they are registered is them having the responsibility to check in with someone and take more sex offender classes, just a list of things for them to check off. Their is no real enforcement or strategy like I've been trying to explain. I just get so tired of excuses for them.... they have no where to go, they're mentally ill, they were hurt as kids, they didn't know any better, they didn't mean to cause harm, etc. anything to try and plea for their actions. Later on it's... they've served their time, they have rights too, they deserve a second chance, everybody makes mistakes, etc.

In all of this the most dangerous thing is having them back in the communities where they are surrounded by their prey even with the public announcements. You don't put an alcoholic in a bar and trust them not to drink anything. With sex offenders it can be worse because their are plenty of them who can just get off by seeing a kid. I hate the thought that any kid is even looked at with that lust. They shouldn't see a kid for the rest of their life..... they failed to be safe and that is their consequence. Extreme??? Hell yes!

My view of prevention for offenders is not to give them ANY opportunity to hurt another kid. It's not hate but logic... if they don't want to hurt another child, this would make sure they accomplished that goal especially for the minority of them who are sincere.

Point well made! I would only add that, possibly--and here again, I could be wrong, part of the problem in creating a system with that much needed manpower and funding is the general hatred of offenders and the sentiment that they should not be released at all into the community but locked up for life.

Of course this is based on impressions not hard facts...I haven't taken any polls or gathered any statistics, but I know that the overwhelming majority of people I have heard voicing their opinion on the subject have talked only about how they should be castrated, executed or locked up for life.

PS. The above was not referring to opinions expressed on the board so much as conversations I have had or overheard from people I have been around over the years.

USMC's "facts" are all based on his opinion and no evidence, scientific or otherwise. Even the department of justice admits that the recidivism rate is very low for sex offenders.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the recidivism rate of sex offenders is "5.3 percent of sex offenders (men who had committed rape or sexual assault) were rearrested for another sex crime..." (1)

Does 5.3 percent (or 94.7 percent that never go on to abuse again) warrant special "camps" for 100 percent of them?

And why not put other criminals into these camps because they also may hurt others after their arrest? Who decides what criminal goes and what doesn't? Where does it stop? Where is the line?

It's all very complicated and making it simple like saying "they should all go" is illogical and ethically wrong, I feel.

Is the kid who's 18 and sleeps with his 16 year old girlfriend with a psycho dad deserving of The Camp?

Is the fellow who committed his offense 20 years ago, served his time, completed years of treatment and is offense-free for all those years deserving of The Camp?

And the reality is that all of this doesn't only effect the sex offender, but also his or her family...and especially his or her kids, if he has them. They are subject to a lot violence and hate from the community because of what their parent did, and possible injury because your sentiments fuel the rage even more and of course gives them moral authority.

So are those kids worth protecting? Or just "some" kids?

Don't believe me? Ask the guy who lost his wife and almost lost his toddler-aged daughter to 2 men burning his house down in Tennessee. Know what people did? They cheered for the two men.

USMC's "facts" are all based on his opinion and no evidence, scientific or otherwise. Even the department of justice admits that the recidivism rate is very low for sex offenders.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the recidivism rate of sex offenders is "5.3 percent of sex offenders (men who had committed rape or sexual assault) were rearrested for another sex crime..." (1)

Does 5.3 percent (or 94.7 percent that never go on to abuse again) warrant special "camps" for 100 percent of them?

And why not put other criminals into these camps because they also may hurt others after their arrest? Who decides what criminal goes and what doesn't? Where does it stop? Where is the line?

It's all very complicated and making it simple like saying "they should all go" is illogical and ethically wrong, I feel.

Is the kid who's 18 and sleeps with his 16 year old girlfriend with a psycho dad deserving of The Camp?

Is the fellow who committed his offense 20 years ago, served his time, completed years of treatment and is offense-free for all those years deserving of The Camp?

And the reality is that all of this doesn't only effect the sex offender, but also his or her family...and especially his or her kids, if he has them. They are subject to a lot violence and hate from the community because of what their parent did, and possible injury because your sentiments fuel the rage even more and of course gives them moral authority.

So are those kids worth protecting? Or just "some" kids?

Don't believe me? Ask the guy who lost his wife and almost lost his toddler-aged daughter to 2 men burning his house down in Tennessee. Know what people did? They cheered for the two men.

I guess I really need to stay out of this conversation all together right now because, sad to say, my knowledge on these things is next to nothing really. I don't doubt what you said here Andy, I'm just realizing that I'm talking too much about a subject I know next to nothing about.

It's good that I am following this thread though for just that very reason. I have a lot of thoughts on the subject but more and more I realize that many of those thoughts are based on impressions and not on hard fact.

Then 2, as I stated earlier, emotions cloud my thinking. If you had asked me what I thought about the whole thing yesterday during the space of about an hour after I read a particularly upsetting post I might have said something like "Forget everything I said! This sh*t has to stop! Just give the gd sons of bitches lethal injection!!!" I'm sure I would have flip flopped again after that quite quickly but it goes to show how emotional I am about it.

I cooled down after that and then started having the thoughts I expressed in my last, or rather 2nd to last post, but I am almost like two people here. One is my emotional self who is still full of rage at my own abuse and that self is easily triggered by reading about the inhumane atrocities committed against others. That self is in complete rebellion against the other self---the mental self that knows that my thinking on the subject should not be ruled by my feelings about it.

One self would say "Put them to death!" the other would say all the things I have been saying. For the most part I like to think I am self aware enough to keep giving the controls to the mental self, but I have to admit that right after reading that kid's post I really didn't know what I thought any more. I could only think about how that kid had been tortured, injured and hunted by his abusers and still the main concern in his post was for how his own pain might effect his younger brother who had a serious illness and had also been abused.

It really is hard to think clearly about this stuff with so much emotion that is in direct conflict with my thoughts.It brings me back to the realization that the solution often begins within. When I have worked out my anger, only then can I trust myself to think clearly and consistently about a subject like this.

I hear what your saying Doug. I have been following this thread very closely and my thoughts are all over the place. I can relate to all feelings and sides of this. Sometimes my hate of child sex abusers is overwhelming and I think they should just be killed like they are in most prisons. I greatly applaud those that make an effort to try to make kids safe by working with perps. I could not do that. There was a man in a chinese prison for being a buddist monk. Being interviewed after his release he was asked if he was scared. He said that he was one time during one of his many beatings, he almost lost his compassion for his captors. I would like to be that way one day although I'm not holding my breath. Perhaps in my next lifetime. Peace. Pete

_________________________
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like to be taught. -Sir Winston Churchill

The other question is 'how many, i.e. what percentage of abusers ever get arrested in the first place'? Of those that have been arrested, the vast majority are multiple abusers that only stopped when they got arrested. They are shit scared of going back to jail, that's the reason why some of the abusers that have been jailed don't get caught again. Many of them leave jail, and try to adopt new identities. They are also quite often reported in the media hanging around childrens playgrounds.

I took the thing that groomed and abused me to Crown Court, that one didn't get away with it, but there were dozens of victims. How many have got away scot free, and are still abusing after decades of doing so. The pervert that groomed and abused me denied everything until the last minute, until the evidence became overwhelming. The admission only came as a ploy to reduce sentencing. It worked (jail the judges as well I say).

If they can be rehabilitated, how many of you would let them babysit your children, nieces or nephews??? Neither would I!

Best wishes ...Rik

_________________________
*Never look down on anybody unless you're helping them up.*I was seeking a way of expressing my anger - I found hope!*There are many battles before the war is won! It can be won!

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